Mogadishu - Somali soldiers were killed while attempting to defuse a bomb planted in a car. Hours after the incident, Al-Shabab, the Somali extremist group, claimed responsibility for the attack. Major Nur Ahmed told Reuters that the victims were killed as the device exploded when they were dismantling parts of the car. The Islamist group claimed that five people, both Somali and foreign, had been killed. The group regularly exaggerates casualty figures from its attacks, according to local news site Somali MeMo. Somalia's military is under growing pressure to assume responsibility for the country's security as a 22,000-strong multinational African Union force prepares to start withdrawing in 2018. The force, which has been supporting the fragile central government, plans to leave by the end of 2020. Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, who was elected in February, has declared war on the militant group, which has been fighting the Western-backed federal government in Mogadishu for a decade. Al-Shabab regularly carries out suicide attacks and detonates car bombs in the capital, and also controls substantial territory in rural southern Somalia.
